I am on a journey. As a woman who has been on a diet her entire adult life (ie. been cheating on a diet my entire adult life), I now say I am done. I am done looking in the mirror and seeing what is wrong with my body and deciding to try dieting. Instead, I am going to look in the mirror at this amazing, beautiful body that God has given me, and decide to treat it right: healthy foods, activity, and respect.
I call this a journey because an entire lifetime of a certain way of thinking cannot be changed overnight. It is a journey of respecting myself, of being an example to my daughter, and of honoring my Lord God and Creator. He gave me this body, gave me my health, allowed me to carry babies, etc. etc. etc. The list could go on and on! And that is the list I want to focus on.
And yet, do you know when my resolve waivers along this journey? When I hear you, you lovely, beautiful, talented, smart, amazing woman, talk down about yourself. I start to think if this lovely, beautiful, talented smart, amazing woman thinks badly about herself, how much worse must I be? How much worse must she think of me? (Now I know you're not thinking worse of me, because everyone is hardest on themselves, but that is how I interpret your words.)
So please, let's just stop. I know... I do it, too. But for the sake of my journey, and even more importantly, for the sake of my daughter's young and pure journey, please stop the negative self-talk.
I could say when we have conversations, start telling me wonderful things about yourself. But let's face it, we're women... that's not going to happen. So instead, look at me and tell me something you admire. And I will do the same to you. I can pull up every woman that I know in my mind and think of dozens of positive things I could genuinely say about them.
You, woman who is reading this blog post, I promise you, I think you are beautiful.
So for my sake, for your sake, and for the sake of our daughters', stop talking negatively about yourselves, and truly believe that you are a beautiful creature of God.
Will you join me on this journey?